Tag Archives: understanding hypnosis

What Happens Under Hypnosis?

Since the name is derived from the God of Sleep in Greek mythology, Hypnos, the practice of hypnosis is often misconstrued as putting someone to sleep, meaning they had relinquished control. This is absolutely not the case. When under a state of hypnosis you are completely aware of what’s going on, but because of being so utterly relaxed, you are not affected by them. Being in a trance or under hypnosis, is a normal state of mine whereby the conscious control of your mind is set aside and your sub-conscious is now free to come to the forefront.

You have probably found yourself totally preoccupied with something going on at home while driving to work, yet arriving there safely with no apparent memory of the drive. This means you were in a trance. While yourconscious mind was busy thinking about the problems you left at home, your sub-conscious mind took control of driving you to work using your regular route. Even though you weren’t actively aware of the drive, if there had been a dangerous situation or some other event happened that wasn’t the norm, you would have snapped out of your trance and been immediately conscious of the danger and taken control of the situation. The subconscious mind immediately yields control to conscious when any dangerous situation or mental conflict happens.

While under hypnosis the mind is very vulnerable to suggestion, I don’t mean to imply that you “lose control” when in a state of trance. The truth is that any suggestions you get while in a trance will only take hold if it’s congruent with your own ethical or moral beliefs. For example, if holding up a jewelry store is not something you would be inclined to do consciously, there is no suggestion strong enough while in a trance that could get you to rob a jewelry store. The same thing holds true while under hypnosis, at the mere suggestion you would quickly “break state”, meaning you would come to and be completely awake and alert.

One of the most interesting tools of hypnosis assisted psychotherapy is known as past life regression. During past life regression a client is hypnotized and taken back in time to an event that took place in a past life. The goal of a hypnotist is to identify and narrow down to a very specific event that is related to a psychological problem that is affecting the patient’s current life. This brings the knowledge that helps therapist and the patient to deal with the present problem by understanding what event in another life caused this problem.
This approach works best with anxiety and depression. The therapist not only identifies and taps into a situation or event that is a source of anxiety or depression for his client, but also reframes the event or change what was experienced so that the said event does not negatively affect their client any longer in their present life.
Past life regression was first developed in 1890’s Paris under Dr. Pierre Janet who collaborated with Sigmund Freud in an experiment to use it as a tool of psychotherapy. The subject of past life regression was seen as some type of an occult philosophy and commonly regarded as unbelievable. It was pretty much ignored by therapists for the next seven decades, at least until Morey Bernstein wrote a publication entitled “The search for Bridie Murphy” during the 1960’s. This was an account of a young women, Virginia Tighe from Colorado who, when hypnotized, travelled back to a former life in 19th century when she was a young woman in Ireland known as Bridie and recalled many details about her life. Many of these details couldn’t have been known to this young women, who never left her home town. After many searches in Irish archives it was discovered that there was a person with the name Bridie Murphy Corkell, and most facts of her life did match to the descriptions given by Virginia Tighe.

When it comes to using hypnosis as a medical procedure, we are not talking about what you see in pop culture television shows and in classic movies where the person administering the hypnosis says “you are getting very sleepy”. The type of hypnosis we are referring to in this article is known as hypnotherapy in the medical field and is a type of medical procedure in conjunction with other therapies and medical treatments.

The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis defines hypnosis more clearly as a state of focused attention, concentration, and an inner absorption that helps us to use our minds in a more powerful way. The American Psychological Association states that, like many other medical procedures, hypnosis should only be carried out by healthcare professionals who have the proper training and appropriate credentials. These professionals should only use the procedure within their limits of expertise.